Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitarist and composer whose collaborations with Western classical musicians as well as the Beatles and other rock stars helped foster a worldwide appreciation of India’s traditional music, died Tuesday San Diego. He was 92.

Shankar died in a hospital near his home, his family said in a statement, adding that he had suffered from upper respiratory and heart ailments in the past year and underwent heart-valve replacement surgery last Thursday.

Shankar, a soft-spoken, eloquent man whose virtuosity transcended musical languages, was trained in both Eastern and Western musical traditions. He began touring in Europe and the United States in the early 1950s, and gradually built a large following for Indian music.

Shankar collaborated with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, and was a mentor to the jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane. But Western interest in his instrument, the sitar, exploded in 1965 when George Harrison of the Beatles encountered one on the set of “Help!,” the Beatles’ second film.

Harrison was intrigued by the instrument. He soon learned its rudiments and used it that year on a Beatles recording, “Norwegian Wood.” The Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Byrds and other rock groups followed suit.

Shankar reveled in the attention his connection with popular culture brought him, and he performed for huge audiences at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 and at Woodstock in 1969. Last week, he was told that he would receive a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in February, said Neil Portnow, the head of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.

Ravi Shankar, whose formal name was Robindra Shankar Chowdhury, was born on April 7, 1920, in Varanasi, India, to a family of musicians and dancers.

His first marriage, to Annapurna Devi, ended in the late 1960s. They had a son, Shubhendra Shankar, who died in 1992. He also had long relationships with Kamala Shastri, a dancer; Sue Jones, a concert producer, with whom he had a daughter, Norah Jones, in 1979; as well as Sukanya Rajan, whom he married in 1989. Anoushka Shankar, the sitar virtuoso, is their daughter, born in 1981. He is survived by his wife and two daughters, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

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